It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.

There's something tragic in the fate of almost every person--it's just that the tragic is often concealed from a person by the banal surface of life.... A woman will complain of indigestion and not even know that what she means is that her whole life has been shattered.

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.

What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.

In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!

The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.

Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time; the fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it out in his own good time.